by Hrag Vartanian
Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung newspaper called him "A Patron Saint for Investors in Russia," not bad for 34 year-old Ruben Vardanian who heads the investment bank, Troika Dialog. Troika is considered one of the top credit institutions in Moscow and Vardanian's knowledge of the country's corporate world is supposedly unparalleled.
Born in Armenia, he studied economics and finance at Moscow University, interned at Merrill Lynch in New York and then chose to settle in Moscow. He founded Troika Dialog with an American who ran the commercial banking wing, which eventually went bankrupt, as opposed to Vardanian's investment banking arm which experienced exponential growth.
He exploded the initial investment of $35,000 to $36 million. Last year, his firm netted five million dollars. While the organization is headquartered in Moscow, it has branches in most large Russian cities and employs 355 people.
Vardanian owns 10% of the bank, while the Bank of Moscow and the Opel family of Switzerland are also major shareholders. His firm was one of the first to trade domestic Russian shares and he is still working to stabilize a Russian industry that even makes experienced investors weary.
Then there's insurance. His play: the $40 million purchase of a 49% stake in Rosgosstrakh, the Soviet-era monopoly provider of insurance, with a nationwide network of 2000 branches. Greater stability, Vardanian notes, has lots more Russians buying life insurance, its highest-margin product and a new law making auto insurance compulsory.
He's been named businessman of the year by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1999 and Fortune magazine anointed him one of the world's 25 leaders of the new generation in 2001. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Russian National Symphony and last year sponsored the orchestra's performance at New York's Carnegie Hall. Recently, magazines have started to wonder how long Troika will be able to resist the reach of Russia's powerful businessmen—but against all odds Vardanian retains his independence.
